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FINANCING | TUNGSTEN
Neither the US Export-Import Bank (EXIM) nor the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) plans to fund Cove Kaz Capital Group's tungsten venture in Kazakhstan, Mining Weekly reported, citing a US official and a source familiar with the matter. The two lenders issued letters of interest last year covering $1.6 billion: $900 million from EXIM, which expired in August, and $700 million from DFC, according to Bloomberg News. A DFC official told Bloomberg the agency is not “actively pursuing a transaction with them at this time”. Executive Chairman Pini Althaus said the project does not yet require loan financing and will not apply until a definitive feasibility study is completed next year.
Take Cove Kaz's own sequence: definitive feasibility study next year, a three-phase build of at least 42 to 48 months, first US supply targeted for 2031. The letters of interest were never the binding constraint; the study is. A tungsten concentrate buyer qualifies feed through conversion trials, and nobody runs those before the flowsheet is fixed. US consumers should not move any 2027 to 2030 tonnage into supply plans on the strength of these letters, renewed or not.
M&A | NICKEL, COBALT
EverMetal Holdings, backed by private equity firm GEF Capital Partners, has acquired Sheffield-based Advanced Alloys, MINING.COM reported. Advanced Alloys processes nickel, cobalt and specialty minor metals, including superalloy turnings, and trades high-purity tungsten, tantalum and niobium. EverMetal bought US superalloy recycler CAI Custom Alloys in August last year, and CEO Hugo Schumann said the deal creates a transatlantic specialty metals platform. Financial terms were not disclosed. EverMetal said it is pursuing further acquisitions in North America, the UK and Europe.
Superalloy revert is worth what the melter will accept. Aerospace and power-generation alloy producers buy revert from approved sources, and a new supplier's turnings go through chemistry certification before they enter a melt. EverMetal is buying businesses that already hold those approvals instead of building capacity, which is the faster route to volume. The release gives no tonnage, so the platform's weight in nickel and cobalt supply cannot be measured yet.
ANTITRUST | NICKEL
MMG said on Wednesday it will revise the remedies it offered the European Commission to win EU antitrust approval for its $500 million bid for Anglo American's Brazilian nickel business. “The feedback has been critical but constructive,” MMG said in a statement obtained by Reuters. According to a person close to the talks cited by Reuters, the revised offer raises ferronickel supplied to Europe to 16,000 tonnes a year from 11,500 tonnes, with more contract certainty and pricing flexibility. The Commission will decide by December 21.
MMG is answering a diversion fear with a volume number. The Commission worries Brazilian ferronickel could go to China, yet analysts told Reuters Chinese stainless mills run on cheaper Indonesian nickel. The larger exposure sits in the other outcome: Anglo said it would likely shut the operation if the sale is blocked. European stainless mills would then lose the full Brazilian tonnage and have to qualify replacement ferronickel, not argue over 4,500 tonnes.
OFFTAKE | URANIUM
Lotus Resources has signed a sale and purchase agreement for about 173,000 lb of off-specification uranium product inventory from its Kayelekera mine in Malawi, sold to an unnamed US-listed global critical minerals company. The company said the material was produced during ramp-up with higher impurity levels and was not deliverable to a converter at the time. The sale is at a discount to contract prices, free on board ex Walvis Bay, Namibia. Lotus is packaging the product and targets dispatch from site within the next month.
Lotus had 173,000 lb that no converter would take, and it chose a discounted sale FOB Walvis Bay over blending or reprocessing on site. The buyer is a critical minerals company, not a utility, so the material most likely goes through another processing step before any conversion. For a mine in ramp-up, the constraint is the converter specification itself: every pound produced off-spec now sells below contract price until the circuit runs clean.
